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“If you ever return here you will be executed for what you've done.”
The Doctor held her head low, her throat clenched with familiar guilt. She'd tried her best to do the right thing, only now she knew she'd gone wrong somewhere. It had cost these people greatly, and she'd just fly away in her blue box. She didn't deserve the escape.
“From this night forward, the Time Lord, known as the Doctor, is forbidden to enter our planet for crimes against the faith.” The alien spoke to the council surrounding them, Yaz and the Doctor still on their knees. Their faces were covered in ash and blank with pain. “Remember what you did today, because nobody here will ever forget you.”
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She swung the blue doors open, the TARDIS groaned. Yaz could've sworn it sounded concerned for its beloved pilot. The doctor strided to the console, rapidly plotting a course to the deepest part of space. Every button press driven by the tears threatening to spill. She needed to go anywhere but here. Yaz stood waiting for the inevitable, she knew nothing she could say would be well received. And she was entirely too angry to stay quiet.
The Doctor had blundered her way headfirst into another emergency to avoid talking after their last argument. And she'd proved Yaz's entire point. If you don't talk it out, then you'll end up hurting someone. She didn't want to admit that it wasn't just those the Doctor was saving that might get the brunt of her unexpressed trauma. She was hurting too much to tell her that. They were aware of the cracks in their relationship's surface. But only one of them could see what would become of them if they continued like this.
"Doctor." The blonde pulled the final lever and made to leave without so much as a glance behind her. "Come back. You need to talk."
"Give it up Yaz I'm not in the mood."
"You never are!" Yaz stepped forward pushing the Doctor back without a touch.
"Oh I'm sorry, I've just managed to blow up a sacred mountain to save a planet and everyone on that planet now hates me for it, so forgive me for being a little unwilling in this interrogation." The Doctor spat.
"Is that what you're calling this? I try to ask you not to bottle it all up and I've somehow crossed some line." The Doctor gritted her teeth.
"I told you to let it go and you didn't listen, again." A dark look covered her face, Yaz knew it all too well. It was the same look she always gave in hopes of gaining the higher ground. That unsettling uncaring tone that made Yaz feel smaller than a snowflake and just as delicate.
"Not everybody in your life is going to be okay with you putting up a wall every time they ask for more. Least of all me."
"What I have to give isn't worth the look that'll be on your face once I've stopped." A defeated sigh left her mouth, Yaz couldn't possibly understand what it's like to see a loved one change the way they look at you.
"That is not enough, Doctor. You lock yourself away too much."
"And why do you think that is Yaz, hmm? I'm older than everything you'll ever see, I hold the weight of worlds on my shoulders, I could change the course of history with the right word, if I wanted to. That power doesn't make a person invincible, it makes them the most vulnerable of all. You really want to know me? Well you can't, it would burn up your human brain before I even got past the first sentence. I've seen it happen Yaz, I don't tell you because I don't care. I don't tell you because all of me would shatter you. Every little piece of that beautiful soul would be gone, and I cannot afford to lose my patience with the universe over another dead friend."
"Do you really think that?"
A little curious light caught the Doctor's eye. She didn't understand the question.
"That I need to know every breath you've taken. That's not how love works and I think you know that. How dare you Doctor. I would've thought someone as clever and as amazing as you could see it. I don't want to root around your secrets, I want to comfort the woman I love when she needs it. And you damn well know how much you're hurting."
"I-"
"What, am I wrong?" Her face steeled, desperation fizzed into tears. Her chest felt like it would burst.
"You- love me." It wasn't a question, she whispered to herself.
Yaz’s eyes welled up yet again. "I love every part of you, dark and light. I just need you to speak with your heart, not with that old stubborn head of yours. Your past is irrelevant when it comes to how I feel."
Her back thud against the wall, the Doctor's body pressed into her and the space between them sealed. Cold hands held her face so gently, a thumb caressed her cheek as she lost herself in a searing kiss.
The Doctor kept her hands glued to Yaz’s face. Her lips desperate against her friends, every small sound filled the still air around them.
Their scents mixed as the Doctor's tongue tentatively touched her own. The reaction was instantaneous, Yaz's body lit up like fireworks. Their mouths melded together like it was the most natural thing in the world. She'd just noticed wetness on her face when the doctor parted only far enough to rest their foreheads against each other.
Yaz took in the terrified eyes looking back at her. There was a complete honesty there that shocked her. This was the doctor without all the walls, bearing her heart on her sleeve and frightened of being hurt again.
She reached up, covering the blonded heart with her palm. The Doctor's chest rose and fell rapidly, every breath tinged with anxiety. They'd kissed, and Yaz wasn't about to let the Doctor recoil into herself.
"I don't know how to tell you how much that meant to me. But if you let me, I can try?" The doctor nodded, the movement so subtle. Yaz wasn't sure what her plan was but she knew that the space between them needed to be removed. It had felt so right, being so intimately close.
Yaz took a hold of the blonde's wrist, pressing light kisses to the thin skin there. The Doctor watched in anticipation, utterly captivated with every touch. With the final kiss, she led the same hand to rest on Yaz's hip. She repeated the action with the Doctor's other arm. Her own hand wandered to the hem of the Doctor's jumper, soft fingers ventured up and beneath meeting soft but strong muscles of the Doctor's stomach. The older woman shivered, stifling a gasp.
"I know you'll find it hard at first, but we don't have to start with words Doctor."
With encouragement the doctor pulled Yaz's waist firmly against hers. Both their eyes fluttered shut at the sensation.
"I want to show you." Her voice came out barely a whisper. The heat between them spurring her on.
"I'm ready to listen."